Empirical Investigation on Agile Methods Usage: Issues Identified from Early Adopters in Malaysia

Agile Methods are a set of software practices that can help to produce products faster and at the same time deliver what customers want. Despite the benefits that Agile methods can deliver, however, we found few studies from the Southeast Asia region, particularly Malaysia. As a result, less empirical evidence can be obtained in the country making its implementation harder. To use a new method, experience from other practitioners is critical, which describes what is important, what is possible and what is not possible concerning Agile. We conducted a qualitative study to understand the issues faced by early adopters in Malaysia where Agile methods are still relatively new. The initial study involves 13 participants including project managers, CEOs, founders and software developers from seven organisations. Our study has shown that social and human aspects are important when using Agile methods. While technical aspects have always been considered to exist in software development, we found these factors to be less important when using Agile methods. The results obtained can serve as guidelines to practitioners in the country and the neighbouring regions

The Design of the Agile Culture Transformation Canvas

In today’s fast-paced environment where priorities are constantly changing, organisations are increasingly turning towards agile. When doing so, organisations ought to consider their organisational culture because being agile is inherently a matter of culture. This is however a challenging task, in particular, because what is meant by having an agile culture highly depends on the organisation. Therefore, to help organisations in this journey we have initiated a design science research project to design the Agile Culture Transformation Canvas (ACTC). The ACTC is a visual tool that offers a collaborative space for its users to analyse their current culture, co-design their desired agile culture and define steps on how to close the gap between the two. In this short paper, we present the steps we have already taken in the design journey of the ACTC and along with the next ones planned

Examining the relationship between agile adoption motivation factors and agile practice clusters used by software startups in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Agile software development methodology (ASDM) has been increasingly adopted in organizations. Despite many benefits offered by ASDM, successful ASDM adoption is a big challenge for organizations. Many studies show that these methods were adopted partly by selecting a set of agile practices. Therefore, it is difficult for new adopters to choose agile practice sets that fit their organization needs as ASDM has a big pool of available practices or clusters. Agile practices should be selected based on motivation factors that include the organization needs in order to maximize the benefit of adopting them. The aim of this study is to identify the relationships between organization’s ASDM adoption motivation factors and the agile practices clusters. This study used a quantitative approach to evaluate the relationships between these variables. The study was conducted using a questionnaire with 76 software practitioners from software startups in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The analysis generated 4 clusters; each is associated with a list of practices. These clusters are labeled as project management, quality assurance, software process, and incremental and iterative clusters. This study finds that three adoption motivation factors (a motivation for increased software quality, increased efficiency, or increased effectiveness) are associated with the quality assurance, software process, and incremental and iterative clusters. By understanding these factors in terms of ASDM adoption and which types of agile practice cluster is more suitable will help to increase the success of the agile adoption process. Furthermore, the study will help to understand how the startups selected the practices used. Also, the study could help new startups to easily choose the proper agile practices based on their motivation and needs. The findings will help the organization to select suitable agile practices cluster by matching the motivation factors that correspondingly affect the ASDM successful adoption

The Impact of Organizational Culture and Structure on the Routinization of Agile Software Development Methodologies

Agile software development methodologies represent a departure from the heavy document-driven procedures of plan-driven approaches. As organizations continue to adopt agile methodologies, understanding the factors that influence the routinization of agile is a growing concern. In recent years, researchers have focused their attention to the issues of post-adoptive agile use in order to extend our knowledge on agile assimilation. However, little research has been conducted to expose the assimilation gaps that occur as organizations seek to increase the extent and intensity of their agile use. Following prior literature, our objective is to articulate a model that explains the impact of organizational culture and structure on the routinization of agile methods. Our theoretical model provides helpful insights that extend our of knowledge of agile assimilation in organizations

Defining Agile Culture: A Collaborative and Practitioner-Led Approach

Agile transformation requires more than the adoption of new practices, it also requires a change of behaviours, norms and mindset across the organisation. This suggests that organisations need to change their culture to become more agile. But what is Agile culture? In this paper we explore how a group took a collaborative and practitioner-led approach to developing a definition of Agile Culture and a set of tools to aid cultural assessment. We tell the story of the process, discuss the artefacts created, and analyse the approach taken using a model of interdisciplinary collaboration

Adapting (to) Agile Methods: Exploring the Interplay of Agile Methods and Organizational Features

It is a common understanding that agile methods are not implemented “one-to-one” from guidelines but are tailored to the specific conditions of organizations. This perspective, however, can be extended by taking into account that agile methods also have a considerable impact on organizational features of introducing firms. Against the backdrop of current application scenarios of agile methods in practice, this paper aims to capture and explain the interplay of agile methods and organizational features as well as their respective adaptations. By utilizing adaptive structuration theory as a theoretical research lens, I employ a qualitative-empirical research approach comprising four case studies. I find that the interplay of agile methods and organizational features represents a process of mutual adaptation that constitutes the organizational change in terms of agile methods’ implementation. I further conclude that agile methods represent a vehicle to foster desired organizational change

What Works When? Exploring Contingency in Software Development Methodology

In project management „one size does not fit all‟. Matching the methodology to the needs of a particular project is essential in managing cost, quality and schedule. Because project personnel tend to favour the methodology they are most experienced in, and numerous methodologies are available on the market, objective guidance is required to select a methodology that leads to project success. This research engaged with members of the PRINCE2, PMI and Agile communities via local interviews and an international survey. Factors in the project and project environment (organisation, industry, etc) were identified that predicted the software development methodology that fits. The results also reveal that methodology fit, experience level and market uncertainty are significant predictors of project success

Exploring Critical Success Factors in Agile Analytics Projects

Via updating Chow and Cao’s list of success factors for agile projects, attributes of potential critical success factors (CSF’s) for agile analytics projects were identified from the literature. Ten new attributes were added to Chow and Cao’s original list. Seven new attributes from the general agile project literature address: risk appetite, team diversity and availability, engagement, project planning, shared goals, and methods uncertainty. Three attributes specific to analytics projects were added: data quality, model validation, and building customers’ trust in model solution. The potential validity of the various CSF’s and attributes was explored via data from case studies of two analytics projects that varied in deployment success. The more successful project was found to be stronger in almost all the factors than the failed project. The findings can help researchers and analytics practitioners understand the environmental conditions and project actions that can help get business value from their analytics initiatives

Large-Scale Agile Frameworks: A Comparative Review

This study aims to identify and systematically compare the main large-scale agile frameworks that companies can adopt to manage the work of large-scale and distributed teams. Through this, companies can more consciously perform a better-informed decision on the choice of the framework that best fits the practices and challenges of their organizations. This work employs a qualitative approach supported by an exploratory analysis that identifies and explores the processes of migration to a large-scale agile. In the first phase, fifteen assessment criteria for scaling agile are discussed. In a second phase, these criteria are used to perform a comparative analysis of six large-scale agile frameworks (i.e., DAD, LeSS, Nexus, SAFe, Scrum at Scale, and Spotify). The findings reveal there isn't a dominant large-scale agile framework in all dimensions. However, it is possible to identify frameworks like Nexus and Spotify that target smaller teams and offer low technical complexity. These frameworks easily accommodate changes, while there are other frameworks like SAFe and DAD that offer high levels of scalability but require more demanding and deep efforts in changing work processes in an organization